I lived in Northeast China and often traveled to Beijing on vacation and long weekends. It’s a wonderful city and I was there when they won the bid for the Olympics. I can’t begin to describe the air of excitement and feelings of patriotism that permeated every facet of my life afterwards.  The Olympics will be the perfect way for the Chinese to show off their beautiful country to the rest of the world.

I’m particularly interested in the building of the Olympic Stadium.  It will be magnificent when it’s finished.    This website features the twelve stadium designs that were taken into special consideration for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  I thought that several of the designs reflected the beauty, charm and enduring tenacity of China and her people.

However, The Bird’s Nest beat out 12 other designs and won the title as Olympic Stadium for the 2008 Olympics.  It is estimated that it will cost up to 3.5 billion yuan. I have no idea how they are going to achieve this but I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s finished.  Construction of the Olympic Stadium started in December 2003 and once finished, will be able to host 90,000 specatators.

We’re planning our summer 2008 trip to the Beijing Olympics and have one major obstacle to get around. Tickets. We aren’t sure how difficult it’s going to be to get them.  Another issue will be accomodations, but we aren’t going to worry about that just yet.  Hotel prices are going to be through the roof, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get in contact with some friends for some suggestions.

John has been checking online every day because we were told that tickets go on sale in early 2007.  He found out yesterday that tickets will be going on sale during the first week of April 2007.

So, the waiting game has begun. Yesterday, John and I chose the events we’d like to attend and then he spent hours going through a lengthy process of  reserving tickets. We can only reserve 48 tickets to events, which might seem like a lot, but given the amount of tickets available to the general public, I think we’re going to be really lucky if we get into one event!

From what we’ve heard, ticket prices are being kept down to allow Chinese nationals to attend. This is great news. However, the number of tickets that will be made available to the rest of the world will be quite low when you add in the number of Chinese citizens that want to attend the 2008 Olympics. 1,500,000 domestic travelers are expected to attend the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. We have heard that they are expecting half of that amount in overseas travelers. We aren’t sure what to expect, but we’re doing our very best to ensure that we get tickets to at least one event.